1) A devastating, fact-laden rebuttal of Gofman's radioactive superstitions: "Radiation Fantasies" by Prof. Bernard L. Cohen, Reason, March 1980, pp. 24-35; $2 from Box 40105, Santa 93103.
2) J. Shattan's "The No-Nuke Wind Ensemble," Amer. Spectator 1980, examines the New Left in antinuclear garb.
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3) Photo from the Neue Zurcher Zeitung of 23 Jan. 1980 shows home of pro-nuclear lawyer in Munchenstein, Switzerland, with Sfr.500,000 worth of damage. The arsonists who took responsibility in a call to Swiss TV were a band of antinuclear terrorists (the US media would probably have called them "militants" or "activists").
4) Energy in Transition 1985-2010 is the long-awaited report by the National Academy of Sciences on nuclear and alternative energy systems. In a nutshell: There's nothing much but coal and nuclear. Antinuclear activist Gus Speth, shockingly ignorant even as his type of crusader goes, wasted no time in smearing the work, which was enough for a New York Times editorial to reject years of work by the nation's top scientists.
5) While the US is in deep slumber, how is the rest of the world doing?
Fine, thank you: In 1979, nuclear capacity outside the US rose to 70,200 MW, an increase of almost 25% over mid-1978; that includes 166 operable reactors, 156 under construction, and 33 more on order. (The US has 72 reactors with combined capacity 52,300 MW, of which more than 7,300 are shut down for political reasons.) France plans to bring one reactor on line every two months for the next 5 years; Japan, with the largest single program outside the US, is heading for 78,000 MW by the end of the century, and is seriously considering nuclear heat for steel production by the end of the decade; France and Britain are now definitely committed to the pressurized water reactor, the type of reactor used at TMI. In percentage of total power produced per year (1978), the US nuclear share of 12.6% is now surpassed by Belgium and Sweden (25% for each), Switzerland (19%), Britain, France and Germany (13%), and almost equalled by S. Korea (12%). The Soviet Empire has smaller shares, but a very much faster pace; nuclear heat for central home heating (without electric power generation) is being introduced in Soviet cities.
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Vol. 7, No. 8
Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Volume 7 Issue/No.: Vol. 7, No. 8 Date: April 01, 1980 03:23 PM Title: Anniversary of the Grand Disaster
Copyright © 2004 - Access to Energy Newsletter Archive
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